Thank you for inviting me. My name is Idris and. Uh, you want to hear about my professional background so I have got a PSD in. Uh, computer science from. Department of Computer Science in Jamia Hamdard University. Uh, New Delhi. PSD research work. Was focused on. Data analytics. Uh, time series and. Uh, machine learning. After my PhD, I got a chance to apply for postdoctoral fellowship and I was. Lucky to get one to scare one position through. Airsim European. Research Consortium. For informatics and. Uh, mathematics. Uh, France? And I got an opportunity to. Uh, do postdoctoral research at. Uh, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Norway in 2019. And after that? I've worked there as. Post doc for two years. And after uh. Two years. Being impressed by my work, I got. Offered an another position as. Postdoctoral researcher and. And lecturer at Decentralized Systems Engineering Lab. NTNU, Norway. And while I have been working. From last four years. Uh, my teaching duties here included like, uh, research. Teaching. Supervision. Students Provision. And applying for new grant proposals. And uh. Collaborating with other stakeholders of the lab. Thank you.

Interesting — you've balanced research and teaching across several environments. Out of all the foundational courses you've taught, which one do you most enjoy introducing to students, and why?

Yeah, as I, as I said, like my professional journey in Academy has started with my PhD from Department of Computer Science at. Jamie Hamdard University, New Delhi. After my PhD, I go to chance. To apply for. Uh, famous. Uh, European Union uh research Fellowship named as. Air SIM. Air SIM Fellowship. So it offers a postdoctoral research funding for research scholars all. Over the world. So it's highly competitive. And scaring 1 is in. It's a big achievement. And after getting that. It's in fellowship. Midway for me to. Uh, enter into the. Uh, international research at. Continue so and I have been working here from last. Uh, six years since 2019.

Alright, you've covered the research journey pretty thoroughly. Earlier you mentioned supervising students — can you walk me through how you structure a typical class or lab session when teaching a core topic in machine learning?

And in terms of classrooms, I I usually. Do it by. Providing tasks to students like a group task or providing some collaborative Sims to them so that they could help one another and at the same time. Yeah, we'll be able to learn and. Learn from one another and. And also. Uh, Polish their skills?

That's an interesting point. Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

Hello.

Yes, I'm here. Let's pick up from where we left off — you talked about group tasks and collaborative learning in your classroom. Can you give me a concrete example of a group activity or assignment you've designed for a machine learning course, and how you assessed whether students actually understood the material?

Previously I I have been involved in. Teaching uh. Uh, subjects like, uh, database course and the. Introduction to research into centralized systems. So I have not an exact. Example from the machine learning course, but I have an example from my. Bachelor's course. While I had around 70 students in my class, so I used to give them. Uh, small, uh, I used to design a small assignment tasks and then give divide students into groups. And then offer them. Like to create a database and then insert do different types of operations on that. And also help one another, uh. To review the code. Uh, and also. And also to and also I sometimes gave them. Like a piece of code to analyze and then. Ask them like a. Can you all, uh, design its output? So by this way they used to collaborate with one another like disk, have a small discussion and then. Uh, at the end of the uh. They come up with a. Concrete solution.

Right, that's a solid example from your database course. Shifting to your research now — I noticed your PhD was focused on time series data analytics and machine learning. Can you share a moment where you had to explain a complex aspect of your thesis to a non-specialist student or audience, and how you approached making it understandable?

Yeah, this at right now. It's quite easy to for for the new. Person to understand my research because this is because of the growing. Growing. Data and growing. And interesting in. Social media, like my work, mostly focused on generating data and using that data for making predictions. So I, I try to, uh, I try to help them understand, like you're using social media or you're using Facebook, Instagram. Uh, our. Or any other social media platforms. So they all these are generating huge amounts of data and once this data is generated we can use this data for performing different. Uh, different operations which may include. Like doing some. Of predictions or using that data for other other purpose as well. So. By this way they are able to connect connect my research with with the real life scenarios like they are usually. Well aware about the. Uh, social media platforms and how the data is being generated. So they, it, it, it, it helps them easily connect with that.

Given your background in time series analytics and machine learning, where do you see the most fundable research directions emerging over the next three years? Which specific grants or funding bodies would you target to support these initiatives?

This is a very good question. Uh, first the, uh, research. Future research directions I mean. It depends on your interest. You can apply it in every. Right, like you can apply it in. Finance, financial sectors or you can apply it in other weather forecasting it. Purely depends on your interests. Apart from that, you can also apply it in. Like, uh. Businesses like. Some market analysis like churn predictions or or something related to that? Apart from that, the future funding areas. You can target most of the. Funding calls that are issued by the Government of India. Through Service Science and Engineering Research Board or maybe. Of international research calls like maybe European Research Council or or. It's Erasmus fund, Erasmus findings or? Or any other different country that has uh, funding call with India? Uh, yeah.

Apart from that, you can also apply. Uh, NGOs like there's one NGI remember. Is called exponential science, so it helps with funding for research.

Right, so you're looking at fundable directions across multiple domains — finance, weather, market analytics — and mentioned the Science and Engineering Research Board and ERC. For scaling up, what steps would you take to build a research group here that consistently attracts external funding and produces high-impact publications?

So you can you need to look for. Uh, similar type of uh. Funding bodies and then you can, uh. Prepare the application and submit it.

Let's shift to teaching for a moment. Dr., can you elaborate on your teaching philosophy and describe how you adapt your classroom methods to engage students with diverse learning styles, particularly in multimedia or artificial intelligence domains?

You gave a good overview of funding bodies and general directions, but let's go back to pedagogy for a moment — what approaches would you use to integrate theory-based and laboratory-based coursework effectively while maintaining high academic standards in your area of expertise?

In just a minute I need to read it again.

What approach do you use? Can you repeat the question please? I I I missed it.

Accreditation cycles can be demanding — if you joined our department and found that outcome assessment data was inconsistent across courses, how would you approach fixing that?

Let me repeat that for you: What approaches would you use to integrate theory-based and laboratory-based coursework effectively while maintaining high academic standards in your area of expertise?

OK, so. For maintaining the perfect balance between Thori and and. Uh labeled uh, practical work. You need to uh first have uh, help students have a basic uh. Firm foundation of the theoretical concepts and after that. Once you. Once you, you. Cover up this this aspect you can uh. Design tasks or assignments that and helps students to work on them. So that by that way you can, you can force can can motivate students to. Uh, work on the practical tasks. And you can give them, uh, some active learning, uh, or collaborative. And assignment tasks or or. Maybe you first need to help students. Like, uh, prepare them theoretically and then. Uh. Then uh. Uh, applied the theoretical knowledge they have gained in. In the. In the hands on sessions on the. Practical practical labs or Practical labs or. Other assignments.

So basically you need to have a perfect balance between Thori. And and and the practical skills like you can give them. Assignments or you can do the mini projects you can give them uh other other you can design some other quizzes through. Like mentimeter sessions or? Kahoot sessions to help them stay inter interactive. Uh, throughout the lecture so that they can. Apply the both. They can both get theoretical knowledge as well as and and and apply that theoretical knowledge in, uh, in real real. Uh, practical questions.

Let’s turn now to industry connections. Given your research in time series analytics and machine learning, have you developed any relationships with companies or industry partners that could help create internship or placement opportunities for students?

Now, focusing on your technical expertise — can you share a specific project or research contribution where you applied multimedia analysis or AI techniques to media data, and walk me through a challenge you faced during that work?

As I said, like my research mostly focus around. Data analytics and blockchain. So I I'm not sure what multimedia analytics are you talking about. Can you please help me understand this?

Alright, we're wrapping up. Is there anything you'd like to ask about the role or the team?

You mean I? I ask you about the disposition or or? The position I am about to get.

Yes, you can ask about the position. As an Assistant or Associate Professor here, you'd be teaching both theory and lab courses, mentoring students on projects, supporting research, contributing to publications, and taking part in academic and administrative work within the department. Is there anything specific about the responsibilities or expectations you'd like to know?

Yeah, I may like to know more about like how do you? Uh, evaluate a person's, uh, like how he, how well he's doing. His job? And also. Uh, and also I may like to know like, uh, for the other interview, is it possible to have that? Online since I it's not possible for me to travel to. Vit campus for the. Personal interview. And apart from this, I may like to know about the. Salary offered for this position. And a time. Allowed to join if I get this position.